The tears didn’t begin here, they had to have started long before this

Savage

Something was stolen, something greater than their land

Something that was part of them

Something that was born in their grips

Something that was stripped from them

Something embedded in the very fabric of their being

Something integral to the understanding of who they are

Something that is now gone, gone forever

Savage

These savages are merciless

Why don’t they have mercy on the woman and her children?

Why are they so livid?

Why is peace forgotten?

Who are the true victims?

Savage

People are merciless

The people are dominating, forgetting the existence of difference

Difference is bad

Variation is bad

Nothing can intertwine

Harmony is an option that no one can afford

Savage

Where is God?

Is God present for her? Was God present for them?

His omnipotence could save her, why did it not save them?

Please get on your knees, clip your hands together and sing the swan song

This must have a guarantee on her fate, right?

Savage

A rush of hope floods the captives

Freedom arrives at just the right time

Time is of the essence, where was time for the foreigners?

Was chance ever by their sad?

Were they always vulnerable even though their bonds were strong?

Savage

Luck is present for her, but is absent for the savages

Hope is present for her, but is absent for the savages

Mercy is present for her, but is absent for the savages

Faith is present for her, but is absent for the savages

Safety is present for her, but is absent for the savages

Solace is present for her, but is absent for the savages

Peace is present for her, but is absent for the savages

Home is present for her, but absent for the savages

Savages

How did they become like this?

Is this what happens to beings when all hope is lost?

When everything you know is taken in a flash

A flash is all it takes for the destruction of a society

A community that was woven together in harmony

The stitches tearing, string by string, body by body

This community of fathers, daughters, sons, children, elders

Torn apart by the greed of others, by the thirst of another breed

How could this happen?

This is the origin of the savages

Who are the true savages? Are we?

For my creative writing project, I was inspired by the captivity narrative “The History of Captivity” By Mary Rowlandson. I began the poem with very condensed and minimal lines and had the lines grow throughout the poem. This is done to show how as readers we believe a certain perception, the narrators perception, but slowly realize that this plot and picture is far bigger than we imagined initially. It is reflective of the story itself and the experience of the reader. When I read the story for the first time I felt compassion for Mary and her children due to the fact that she was being held hostage for no reason. As I continued to read the story my perception began to shift from having compassion for the captives to realizing that they are not the only victims in this story. A constant word that encapsulates the poem that I noticed in the story is savage. Savage is a potent word that I believe, carries a significant amount of meaning in the story. The narrator uses the term savage to describe the ‘enemies’ several times, so I imitated the term and decided to repeat it throughout the poem so the readers’ perception of the word changes as they are reading the poem. The term can begin as a very negative word to describe these people and eventually transforms into questioning who the savages are and finally realizing that the settlers were the actual savages in the story. Writing this imitation as a poem rather than a story, I believe was important because the elongated story gives a lot of detail about the captivity and not so much about the situation as a whole. I believe the poem format, even though it doesn’t imitated the structure of the poem, shows a more objective view of the story as a whole.